6 Stone Barrington Novels (106 page)

STONE DROVE BACK TO LONDON AND Chester Street; as soon as he was in the house, he called Mason's cellphone. No answer; he left a message. As an afterthought, he called Carpenter's number.

“Yes?” She sounded harried.

“It's Stone Barrington. Did you get it?”

“Hold on,” she said, and covered the phone, so that he could hear only muffled voices. She uncovered it in time for Stone to hear her say, “Find out why, and do it
now
.” There was real authority in the voice. She came back to Stone. “Are you in Chester Street now?”

“Yes.”

“I'll be there in twenty minutes.”

Stone was going to ask what the hell was going on, but she had already hung up.

Dino let himself in through the front door; he was carrying two large Harrod's shopping bags. “Hey,” he said.

“I take it you got Mary Ann something.”

“Yep; how'd your lunch go?”

“Just as it was supposed to, I think.”

“Good.” Dino stretched. “I think I'm going to take a nap.”

“It's jet lag,” Stone said.

“I never get jet lag.”

“Whatever you say. You want me to wake you up later?”

“Not unless it gets to be dinnertime. Do we have any plans?”

“Not yet; I'll call Sarah later.”

Stone read the papers for ten minutes, then the doorbell rang. He let Carpenter and Mason into the house.

“Come and sit down,” she said. “We have a lot to ask you.”

They all went into the drawing room and took seats.

“Did you get everything?” Stone asked.

“We got almost nothing,” Carpenter replied.

Mason seemed uncharacteristically quiet; usually, he did the talking.

“Your brand-new bug didn't work?”

Now Mason spoke. “There was something in the neighborhood interfering with it,” he said petulantly. “As soon as you left the restaurant, we could clearly hear the sound of your car; it was just in the restaurant that it didn't work. Must have been something in the walls.”

“We lunched outdoors,” Stone said. “It sounds as if Lance Cabot is smarter than you gave him credit for.”

“What do you mean?” Mason demanded.

“He searched me for a wire,” Stone replied, “which means he was suspicious. My guess is he had something in his car that would interfere with any radio transmissions in the immediate vicinity.”

“Shit,” Mason said, with disgust.

“Don't worry about it,” Carpenter said. “We have Stone to tell us.” She turned to him. “Tell us.”

“Someone who works in what sounds like the
factory of a defense contractor has made a duplicate of the device he builds every day. He's going to sell it to Lance for half a million dollars in cash, and Lance is going to resell it to an unknown party for two million, two.”

“What details did he give you about the device?”

“The device is something that requires exotic metallurgy and special machine tools to make. It's made to extremely tight tolerances. Sounds as though it's small enough to carry around.”

“What else did he tell you about this man?”

“He has worked in the same facility for nearly thirty years and is about to retire. Apparently, he's frittered away his savings on the ponies, and he wants to sell the device to make his retirement comfortable.”

“Ponies?” Mason asked, baffled. “Polo?”

“Horse racing,” Carpenter said to him sharply.

“This gives us nothing to go on,” Mason said. “There are factories and laboratories all over the country doing classified work. How are we going to find this man?”

“Lance said that the facility was very secret, and that it's south and west of the restaurant, in Wiltshire,” Stone replied.

“Oh, Christ,” Carpenter said, turning pale.

“Eastover?” Mason asked.

“Shut up!” Carpenter said sharply.

Stone had the distinct impression that, for some reason, Carpenter was now in charge. Perhaps she had been from the beginning.

“What's Eastover?” Stone asked.

“You don't need to know,” Carpenter replied. She turned to Mason. “Listen to me very carefully: I want you to call someone in our tech department and have him call someone eminent in the related sciences that
we know well. Have that person call the director at Eastover and tell him that someone is coming to see him for some advice on a technical matter. I don't want the director to have any idea what's going on, until you get there.”

“I understand.”

“When you arrive and are alone with the director, ask him who fits this description: long-time employee, highly classified work, a builder of devices rather than a designer, close to retirement. If he can't come up with answers based on his own knowledge, have him call in his director of security to go through the personnel files, until you've identified the man. This must be done softly, softly, in such a way that does not create any alarm or gossip in the labs.” She turned to Stone. “When is the buy supposed to take place?”

“Within forty-eight hours of the time I transfer my funds to a Swiss account, which Cabot has already opened.”

Carpenter turned back to Mason. “We have forty-eight hours, probably less, to place our suspect under the most stringent surveillance—electronic, sonic, anything we can scrape up, but I don't want any bodies anywhere near him or his residence, because if Cabot is as smart as he appears to be, that might alert him. Now, get on the phone.”

Mason whipped out a cellphone and walked into the dining room, pressing buttons.

Carpenter turned back to Stone. “When did you say you would transfer the funds?”

“Before the day was out.”

“Have you done it?”

“No.”

“Then you'd better get moving, hadn't you?”

Stone went into the kitchen and used the phone there to call his broker in New York.

“Richardson.”

“Hank, it's Stone Barrington.”

“Hi, Stone, what's up? Got some more money for me?”

“No, I'm taking some out.”

“How come?”

“I can't explain right now. How much have I got in my money market account?”

“Hang.” Stone could hear computer keys clicking. “Three hundred and ten thousand, give or take. The way the market is going, I'm getting ready to start investing it.”

Stone took out the document from the Swiss bank. “Got a pencil?”

“Yep.”

“I want you to transfer two hundred and fifty thousand to the following account number at the Charter Bank in Zurich.” He read the account number twice. “Got that?”

“I've got it. Listen, Stone, I can do as well for you as the Swiss, you know, probably better.”

“This is a short-term thing, Hank; I'll have the money back in my account with you in a couple of days.”

“Is this ransom money, Stone? Has somebody been kidnapped?”

“No, nothing like that. Just do it, Hank.”

“I'm going to need written confirmation; can you fax me something?”

“In five minutes; go stand by the fax machine.” Stone hung up, then went upstairs to his room and opened his briefcase. He took out a sheet of his letterhead, wrote a letter of instructions, then took it down to James Cutler's study and faxed it to Richardson. Then he went back into the drawing room.

Carpenter was on her cellphone, and she waved him
to a seat. She ended the conversation, snapped the phone shut, and turned to Stone. “Did you get it done?”

“The money will be in Zurich within the hour.”

“Good. What are you supposed to do when it's there?”

“Lance is to phone me on my cellphone tomorrow morning and tell me where to transfer it. I'm not going to do that, of course.”

“Why not?” she asked, alarmed.

“Are you kidding? It's a quarter of a million dollars that I worked very hard for. You think I'm going to flush it down some cockamamy security operation I don't really give a damn about?”

She looked miffed. “I quite understand; I'll do something about getting hold of some funds tomorrow. Obviously, if we don't transfer the money, Cabot isn't going to go through with the buy.”

“He said that everything will have to be done at precise times from then on.”

“Don't worry, I'll get the money. And we'll put someone on his house, to keep track of him.”

“I wouldn't do that; he might spot your people, no matter how good they are. He's been trained for that, you know.”

“Yes, you're probably right,” she said.

“Why did you want me to think Mason was in charge?”

She smiled. “The less you know, the better.”

“Carpenter and Mason,” Stone said. “I'll bet you have a colleague named Plumber.”

She laughed. “Let's just stick with those names for the moment, shall we?”

“What are you doing for dinner, Carpenter?”

She blushed. “Maybe when this is over,” she said. She stood up. “Now I have to go find that money.” She walked into the dining room, dialing her cellphone.

CARPENTER AND MASON MADE MORE phone calls, then Mason made ready to leave. “I can be in the director's office at Eastover by five,” he said.

“Wait until half-past. Give the building time to empty out after work,” Carpenter said. “Is everything in motion?”

“Our people are meeting at a country hotel a few miles from Eastover,” he said. “When we've identified our man, I'll get them cracking.”

“Good. Call me if there are any problems.”

“Where will you be?” he asked.

“At the end of my cellphone,” she replied.

“All right; will you need transport?”

“If I do, I'll use Barrington's Jaguar.”

Mason nodded and left.

“He's really quite good,” she said to Stone. “If a little short of imagination sometimes. I'm not sure that can be cured. Now, I have some phoning to do; may I use something besides the dining room?”

“Yes, Cutler's study, right through there.” He pointed at the door.

“Maybe we should plan on dinner,” she said. “It wouldn't surprise me if Lance Cabot decided to rush things a bit.”

“All right.”

She disappeared into the study. Stone called Sarah at her studio.

“Hey, there,” she said brightly. “Are we on for dinner and, you know?”

“I'm afraid not; some business has come up, and I'm going to be tied up all evening. Maybe all night. How about tomorrow night?”

“Oh, all right,” she said, sounding disappointed. “I must have worn you out last night.”

“Not entirely.”

“Good; well, you have until tomorrow evening to rest. I'll see you then.”

“Until then.” He hung up. With nothing else to do, he read the papers until Carpenter emerged from the study around six.

“Well, I've done all I can do until we hear from Mason,” she said. As if on cue, her cellphone rang. “Yes?” She listened intently. “Do you have enough people for that? Well, get more; then call Portsmouth, if necessary. Do you want me to call them? All right, get back to me.” She hung up. “A complication,” she said.

“What is it?”

“There are, believe it or not,
two
people who fit the description of Cabot's contact at Eastover. One of them is a woman.”

“Lance always referred to his contact as ‘he.' ”

“But ‘he' could be a woman, so we have to surveil them both; there's no way around it. Mason is getting more help.”

“What happens at Eastover?”

“Eastover is a code word for a government facility on an army base in Wiltshire, north of Stonehenge.”

“And what do they make there?”

“
Very
serious items,” she said. “Things that are shared only with your government, things that are vital to both our defenses.”

“Were they able to recognize the device from what Lance said about it?”

“As there are two people, there are two devices, made in separate departments; it could be either of them.”

“Is there nothing else you can tell me?”

“Suffice it to say that, if either of the devices fell into the hands of an unstable government or a terrorist organization, it might give them capabilities that neither my government nor yours would like them to have.”

“Weapons capabilities?”

She nodded. “Now, don't ask me any more.”

“All right.”

“Do you like Chinese food?”

“You betcha.”

“I know a place; we'll order in. It's all right, is it, that we have dinner here?”

“Yes, of course, but order for three; my friend Dino is upstairs asleep.”

“May I use the phone? My department frowns on the use of secure cellphones for ordering Chinese.”

“Sure, there's one in the kitchen.”

“It will be an hour or so,” she said. “The restaurant is in Gerard Street, in Soho, not far from my, ah, place of business; they'll send it over in a taxi.”

“Do I pay the driver when he arrives?”

“No, it's already been charged to a business account.”

“For future reference, what's the restaurant?”

“The Dumpling Inn. It's good for a quick before-the-ater dinner, a short block off Shaftsbury Avenue.”

“I'll make a note,” he said, “for a future trip. Would you like a drink while we wait?”

“Thank you, yes; is there any bourbon?”

Stone went to a liquor cabinet across the room and found a bottle of Knob Creek. “Yes, and a good one. Where would a proper, Oxford-educated Englishwoman acquire a taste for bourbon?”

“I did some training in Virginia, near Washington.”

“At the Farm?”

“How did you know that?” she demanded.

“Lance Cabot told me he spent some time there.”

“True; he was in the class just a year ahead of mine; we heard about him.”

“Was Stan Hedger running the place then?”

“Yes; you do know a lot, don't you?”

“Not a lot. Just enough to sound knowledgeable. Ice?”

“Yes, please; I learned that in Virginia, too.”

There was an ice machine built into the cabinet; Stone returned with the two drinks and sat down. They clinked glasses.

“Mmmm, good one,” she said. “I've never heard of it.”

“It's one of a rash of boutique bourbons that have cropped up the past few years. Sort of like your single-malt Scotches.”

Her cellphone rang. “Yes? Well, give the man priority. Try and have it done before he gets home. You'll just have to do the other one while the house is occupied; it
must
be done as soon as possible.” She hung up. “Mason is bringing more personnel up from our Portsmouth office, but right now we've only enough people to wire one house, and I've chosen the man, since he's working late in the lab.”

“Probably getting his device ready to sell.”

“Probably.”

“Did you enjoy the training at the Farm?”

She smiled. “I
adored
it, the rougher the better. I'm quite a tomboy, you know. I grew up outdoors, around horses, played polo. At school, I was a
vicious
lacrosse player; had a terrible reputation among our opponents.”

“I expect your people liked that about you, when you were being considered for your work.”

“No, I think they would have preferred me working in a code room, or something else less masculine. Mason has been working for me for two years, and he's never really become accustomed to being bossed around by a woman. That's one reason I let him take the lead with you; good for his ego.”

“You're not married?”

She held up a bare ring finger. “How very observant of you.”

“Oh, I'm real quick.”

“Marriage would be difficult. If I married inside my organization there would be the problem of arranging compatible postings, office politics, all that. If I married outside, I'd probably have to resign.”

“Why?”

“Oh, many of our male employees are married to civilians, their wives having been well vetted, of course. But for our management, it doesn't seem to work both ways. There'd still be the problem of postings, and they'd be fearful of an officer having to rush home and cook dinner for her husband. And, of course, children would be an unbearable complication. I love the work so much, I rather think I won't marry.”

Dino appeared, rubbing his eyes. “What's going on?” he asked.

“Not a lot. You up for Chinese?”

“I'm always up for Chinese,” Dino replied.